Wicked Justice
by jackal1973
Summary: What's the price that Eric will pay when his lies of omission come home to roost?


_No, NO, no_, his mind raced in furious denial. This couldn't be happening; he mentally rebuffed the suspicion that was dreadfully forming in his mind with each of the Magister's supercilious words. He'd been so careful, so meticulous in shielding her from the baser aspects of his nature that had instinctively guided him throughout his immortal existence. He'd cossetted her since the very night that he'd met her only showing his better side, the one that she'd instructively known was buried within him somewhere, not wanting to risk losing her entrancing belief in him. From their first encounter, he'd been a junkie for her sweetness and he'd never wanted to be without his next fix of her loving acceptance. How could all of his ruthless cunning and gentle handling have come to this?

"I find myself with an unusual predicament," the steely eyed adjudicator mused to his bloodthirsty crowd as they snarled along with every statement. "You were loyal to your Queen, fulfilling orders that you found personally egregious and wrong without thought of being rebellious to your sovereign and, yet," the sadistic judge added with rancor, "it made you a traitor to your own kind."

Fear crept along his spine and settled in his undead heart as he realized that the double edged sword he'd been dancing along for months was finally going to take a swipe at him from both ends. It was going to cut him clean through and, this time, it was going to make him bleed from his very soul.

He'd felt her getting closer to the remote junkyard with each passing second of his trial. Her confusion, her concern, her love, her very desire to help him had waltzed through their bond with surety every step she drew nearer to him.

It wasn't fair.

Little in his undead existence had been but it was especially cruel to feel the devoted emotion of his bonded that he had so cherished beating with renewed strength and vigor within his undead form now. Now, when it was all going to end, when he was going to crush his beloved with the brutal truth of what he'd always been. Now, when they'd both be stuck with his betrayal lying between them like an impassable chasm for an eternity, it was unbearable.

And, yet, with a sense of the unstoppable foreboding that pulsed with life from the undead hearts of the vampires attending his tribunal, he knew it was going to happen. He didn't need their bond to tell him that she'd arrived; that she was heartbeats away from her own destruction, for her delicate scent had already wafted toward him, landing upon his skin like the most torturous of lashes to announce her presence.

So sweet, so pure, so loving, so ready to help.

He wanted to be a coward, to shrink from her seeking eyes, to hide from the love that made him a drowning man in her liquid depths when he gave her untold pleasure but he couldn't. If he could be blessed with having seen the beauty of her heart residing in her gaze when they mated, then he must equally bear the condemnation of her soul now as well.

He was many things but he'd never been weak.

He stood tall, his shoulders rigid, and his jaw unbending as relief swept over her like a tidal wave of reassurance at their first glance. Her faith and trust callously rolled through him, swelling in their bond as it threatened his resolve but he did nothing. He couldn't.

Icy rage momentarily flashed through him at the sight of her smug escort trying to hold her back from him, the knowing calculation and blatant hunger that blazed in the younger vampire's greedy eyes, but his bonded quickly moved away from the other man as if the other vamp had ceased to exist for her because she only had eyes for the man who held her heart.

Her blond hair floated out behind her like a warm cloak buffering her from the crisp evening air as she charged toward him, a halo of sunshine and goodness that should have protected her from the evil lurking in the night but it didn't. It never had, it had always unerringly drawn him closer to her.

Her soft hands reached toward him, offered him support, love, and blind acceptance of whatever he needed even as she disregarded the hissing rumble of death that surrounded her. She didn't heed the warning clamor of the night beasts around her, the overpowering smell of their anticipation, the threat that they posed because she didn't know what it meant. How could she? He'd never shown her that.

Her affectionate embrace, the clutch of her fingers against his torso burned like the purest of silver as it innocently branded him with his penance. Easily, she looked up at him and without restraint she offered him _everything_ just as she'd always done.

But the charity of her love and trust, her selfless and giving nature, would soon be forever out of his reach.

Before he could find the words to explain or succumb to the need to beg her forgiveness in advance, the Magister's judicious cane rapped the abandoned metal beneath him with echoing power. His sentence was about to be issued. He was bound to whatever punishment would be leveled but the harshest discipline was going to be the purgatory of Sookie's final understanding, the moment when she could no longer deny the true monster behind his loving façade.

"Sheriff Northman," the older vampire grumbled with nefarious pleasure, "you owe us for desecrating the blood."

The Magister's words held no surprise for him, he was simply waiting for the first slice of the sword of retribution that was aimed at his soul as the judge further taunted, "And, now, you must make restitution for diluting our strength at this crucial point in our history."

Fangs popped out in appreciation of the Magister's continued punitive measures as he added with a smirk, "You must forfeit the life of your bonded, the warmth of her body and the sustenance of her blood."

A blip of alarm passed through their bond as Sookie pressed tighter into his side seeking his comfort and reassurance. He knew that the loving blonde beside him had no comprehension of what was truly about to befall her as she was temporarily shielded by her youthful naiveté and his purposefully having kept her ignorant. Unnecessarily, she feared being taken away from him and clung to him even more closely. And, then, the rest of the Magister's words settled over them like a mantle of oppressive destruction as he proclaimed, "You must bring her over into our ranks."

That's when he'd felt it, the paralyzing uncertainty and fear that had ripped through their bond tearing him wide open and making him bleed as her luminous eyes had lifted to his seeking denial and reassurance.

Silently, he answered her with white pinpoints of defeat extended; a biting surrender that testified that neither was something that he could offer her now. Now, his Sookie who loved daylight from the very marrow of her bones would be eternally bound as his mistress of the night.

She'd never forgive him but, then again, he'd never forgive himself either.


End file.
